Chandra Clarke

Offering Light and Laughter Wherever I Can

5 Interesting Things – November 2022

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It’s time for the November 2022 edition of 5 Interesting Things. It’s a short round up of things I’ve found that are: potentially actionable, inspiring, thought-provoking.

AI Art – The AI here stands for artificial intelligence, and “AI art” means art created by computers. The image on this post is what an AI system came up with when I asked it, using just word prompts, to produce an image about androids dreaming of electric sheep. (Sci-fi readers will recognize this as riff on the title of a Philip K Dick novel.) Yes, you read that right. All I had to do is write what I wanted it to create, and it drew something for me.

Produced just a few weeks ago, my image is already “outdated” in terms of what AI systems can come up with. For example, someone came up with these fake Zelda posters, which supposedly showed stars like Tom Holland and Emma Watson in an upcoming Netflix series. I’ve seen Snoop Dogg rendered as Yoda (Facebook link), and knitted spiders (Facebook link) in realistic jungle scenes. The first link goes to a gallery of all sorts of images.

The implications here are pretty staggering. First, real vs fake is going to be even harder to discern. I’m in a bunch of AI art groups, and I saw when someone created a cat with snake skin. It appeared in someone’s Facebook feed just a few weeks later labelled as an exotic wild cat in Asia. Another creation, cartoon style cats rendered in a mosaic style, showed up later as a “fantastic new discovery” at Pompeii. (There are cats in ancient mosaics. But they’re definitely not in modern cartoons styles and colours.)

Second, this is going to make a total mess out of image copyrights. You can prompt the AI to do images in the style of hundreds of artists, many of them still alive and trying to earn money from their craft. Not only can the AI render hundreds of images in ‘the style of’ a living artist in a matter of minutes, but it will reduce the market for commissioned art.

On the positive side, it is unleashing a torrent of creativity, allowing mothers to create beautiful custom picture books for their children, game players to create things like decks of cards, and we may finally say goodbye to terrible stock photos, like the ridiculous “woman laughing alone with salad” or “scientist with science-y lab coat surrounded by beakers full of coloured liquid.” And for people like me, with zero talent for art and even less patience for learning it, I can finally translate what’s in my head onto a screen with reasonable accuracy in a fairly short amount of time.

Moving on now to…

Autobrewery Syndrome – The human body is hella weird. Apparently, there’s a rare syndrome wherein your own gut can ferment the carbohydrates you eat, giving you a tummy full of booze. All of the intoxication, none of the fun of a decent glass of Bordeaux.

Sewage Treatment Reimagined – Speaking of tummies, here’s how one group has been inspired by cow digestive systems to come up with a better sewage treatment system. Not a sexy topic, to be sure, but a critical one. With 8 billion of us and counting, not to mention all our livestock and pets, we need better, cleaner, more efficient poop management methods.

Sand Batteries – We’re finally decarbonizing and electrifying, but one of the technical hurdles on this journey is energy storage. Current battery tech has come a long way in the last ten years, but batteries are still heavy and not as energy dense as they could be. Community and house level storage systems are going to be critical. Enter this ‘sand battery’ which stores … heat!

Artificial Photosynthesis – Can you grow plants in complete darkness? As of now, the answer is yes. The technique outlined in the article has implications for indoor farming and energy conservation.

Tell me what you think of this month’s selections in the comments!

Image credit: Midjourney AI

Five Interesting Things – June 2022

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It’s time for the June 2022 edition of 5 Interesting Things. It’s a short round up of things I’ve found that are: potentially actionable, inspiring, thought-provoking.

Green Wave – Looking for a complete career change? Consider ocean farming. That’s right, ocean. Green Wave is a regenerative farming project that does kelp and fish farming, and now they want to teach you how to do it. Read about the project here, and then if you’re intrigued sign up for courses.

Droning on – Do you have a drone? Are you looking for reasons to get one? This blog has a neat list of things you can do with one.

Algae lamps? – A French scientist has been working on a way to generate light using bioluminescent algae. The bonus is that algae are really good at chomping CO2.

Self-driving tractors – We’ve been a long, long way from horse drawn plows for some time, with farmers able to till and plant in the comfort of air conditioned cabs and stereo sound systems. John Deere kicks it up a notch with the release of an autonomous tractor. One of the biggest issues in farming is that the window of opportunity to get stuff into and out of the ground can be quite limited – you don’t want to try to take heavy machinery into a sodden field, or you won’t be getting it out anytime soon. Farmer Bob needs to sleep and eat, but his tractor? A self-driving one can stay in the field 24/7 until the job is done.

Achoo! – The research is really really preliminary, but scientists have made an interesting discovery with regards to allergies and autoimmune diseases. They have learned that neuritin, a protein, suppresses formation of rogue plasma cells which are the cells that produce harmful antibodies. Or in other words, it acts like an antihistamine. Incidentally, a great accessible book on the immune system is, well, Immune by Phillip Detmer. (That last is an affiliate link to Bookshop.org, which supports indie bookstores).

Five Interesting Things – March 2022

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Hey folx! It’s time for the March 2021 edition of 5 Interesting Things. It’s a short round up of things I’ve found that are: potentially actionable, inspiring, thought-provoking. Let’s gooo!

The Future Forest Company – A lot of us live urban lives these days, so we might not have much, if any room to plant a tree. If that’s the case, you can use this organization or others like it to get trees planted where there is room. You’ll be helping to reduce CO2 loads, providing habitat for animals and insects, and generally making things cooler and greener.

Male Fertility – The press has devoted a lot of ink and pixels to the idea of a male fertility crisis. This article suggests that there really isn’t one. If nothing else, this piece demonstrates why continued study of an issue is important to refining our understanding of complicated subjects.

Piddling Concerns – Although this is possibly too much information, an adult on a typical Western diet urinates about 500 liters a year, enough to fill three standard bathtubs. Urine is also full of full of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, which plants need to grow. Rather than flush all that away, researchers are looking at ways to safely recycle your piddle into fertilizer. It would save farmers input costs, and cut sewage treatment plant use down.

Volcano Snails – Yes, you read that right, volcano snails. Apparently, these things live around hydrothermal vents in the Indian ocean, and have — get this — iron shells.

5G and the IoT – The subject of a lot of really stupid conspiracy theories, the 5G technology being rolled out this year is going to make things very interesting in the next decade. It will enable a lot of what we’re calling the “Internet of Things.” That is, objects connected to the Internet and exchanging data. One use case would be sensors embedded in bridges, which would enable us to check their condition remotely and address structural issues before fail like this one did. If you have never heard of the IoT, now is the time to brush up, as it will be affecting your life very soon.

Five Interesting Things – September 2021

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Hey folx! It’s time for the September 2021 edition of 5 Interesting Things. It’s a short round up of things I’ve found that are: potentially actionable, inspiring, thought-provoking. Let’s get to it!

Human augmentation: where it’s at and where it’s headed – Sure, it feels kind of funny to talk about futuristic augmentations to the body at a time when we’re fighting a rather large contingent of anti-science in the middle of a pandemic, but looking at where we’re going helps me cope with the present. (And indeed, I wrote a book about this sort of thing). This is a round up of current and upcoming technologies that will affect what it means to be human.

Making honey without bees and milk without cows – Food is going to be very different in the future. This is one way things might change. As Spock would say: fascinating.

How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century? – This magazine has some interesting, thoughtful pieces on how sometimes simpler, tried and true technologies can be more effective. This article talks about how it’s difficult to design a carbon neutral sailing ship.

This Pipe Transfers Heat 100x Faster than Copper – A short video on a metal that’s super efficient at heat conduction. A handy technology given our fast heating world.

DNA jumps between animal species – An astonishing piece revealing just how much we still have left to learn. If Mr. Robinson was given career advice today, it would be: “One word: genetics.”

That’s it for this month. What did you like in this list? What didn’t you like? Answer in the comments below.